


Grace From Armageddon

by angel_gidget



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows
Genre: And a Conflicted Dad, Gen, Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, Multiverse, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Good Dad, Peter Parker is also a Dead Dad, Protective Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, and then realize it's actually a clone suffering from cell degeneration, do not copy to another site, earth-18119, okay more like marvel 18119/mcu crossover but whatever, resembles canon until you take a closer look, that cell degeneration is otherwise known as Idowhatiwant-itis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24852700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_gidget/pseuds/angel_gidget
Summary: When called to fight in an interdimensional war, Peter Parker of Earth-18119 leaves his only living child in the care of his dead daughter from another universe. Multitasker that he is, Peter is more than capable of worrying about them both, eavesdropping on conversations that are none of his business, and having a mild existential crisis while bracing to battle spider-eating vampires.orRenew Your Vows!Peter must break the spider-cycle of survivor's guilt to help MC2!Mayday. Because that's what you do for family, even when they're from the other side of the Spider-Verse.
Relationships: May "Mayday" Parker & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Annie May Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, background Peter Parker/Mary Jane Watson-Parker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17
Collections: Peter Parker is a Good Dad





	Grace From Armageddon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seekrest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekrest/gifts).



> The canon that this story follows is whatever mish-mash I make of it. You would find that it fits within a loose _summary_ of Spider-Geddon, but doesn't quite slip between any particular set of pages. Considering how reliant the canon tale was on hand-wavey plot devices, I figure I'm more than allowed. Written for Seekrest's "Peter Parker is a Good Dad" Father's Day event. I'm sorry this is late, but I'm so glad to have finally written a fic after so long, and the challenge helped make it possible.

_I’m a bad dad._ Peter Parker thinks to himself.

It’s not the first time he’s thought it. He’s thought it whenever Annie nearly gave away the existence of her spider-powers to some neighborhood snitch because he looked away for one moment. He’s thought it whenever he’s put his foot down about her windows staying closed at night and she started to cry.

And more than anything else, he’s thought it when she’s in her Spiderling gear, going toe-to-toe with some certified super-villain, and he sees a knife or a claw nearly slice through her throat.

She’s fifteen now. Still just a girl. But they’ve been doing this spider-hero-family thing since she was ten. Ten. She’s been diving headfirst into danger for a third of her life. 

What does it say about Peter that he lets his baby girl do this? It's a spiral of thought that always circles back to the same inverted question: what would it say about Peter if he didn't?

He tried that route already. He tried hiding, keeping his head down. He remembers a feeling tugging in his gut in with a twist of disgust at both the situation and himself as he stayed up late into the night repairing and strengthening the black market bracelets he acquired for himself and his daughter. 

He remembers that momentary feeling of uncontrolled fall as the suppression tech switched on, and his powers fled from his body. He remembers the tears bubbling behind Annie’s eyes and she bit her lip and tugged on her pigtail while the same sensation swept through her.

The rest of of Annie's life has been spent hiding behind such a terribly thin veneer of normal while they simply prayed that Regent would not realize the truth: one very prominent superhero still lived in the city that their evil overlord had made his capitol.

That same superhero got up, went to work photographing the truth, and then accepted blackmail payment to prevent the photos from ever seeing circulation. Peter still wakes up some mornings completely floored that he managed to feed himself and Annie and Mary Jane on that blood money for the years that he did.

There's nothing novel to Peter in thinking that he might be a bad person. There's always a worse one out there, and on that front, at least he _tries._

But there's something worse, something sacred about the example he's supposed to set for his daughter. 

More like a sacred trap, something cursed by ancient medicine men, so that one finds oneself poisoned or shot through full of arrows no matter which way they step.

Okay, so some of his metaphors stink.

But the truth is this: Peter feels nothing but relief at the cop-out when he realizes this is _one_ mission in which he can leave his daughter behind.

He doesn't have a lot of up-close-and-personal experience with dimensional travel, but when two spidery-looking ladies start fighting the vulture gang alongside Peter and his family, both his spider-sense and his ye old superhero suspicions tell him that they're at least 87% trustworthy.

And when the one in a spider-suit that looks almost exactly like one of his takes off her mask, that suspicion simply increases.

She isn't just a spider from another dimension, sent to warn him about multiversal vampire people. She's a _May_. She's his little died-before-he-could-hear-her-first-laugh _Mayday_ come from a completely different timeline.

Yeah, there was 0% chance of him processing that right away. None. Zip. But one thing he does catch: the fact that she's offering him an out. Well, not _him_ an out, but a chance for Annie to stay behind.

Annie pouts, but ultimately agrees. She's still given an important task to do, after all. But it means everything in the world that for once, Spider-Man and Spinneret will get to fight knowing their baby will stay behind in safety.

Time to go to war.

* * *

There’s an Iron Man in the room.

_That’s weird,_ Peter thinks as he stands a little closer to Mary Jane while she fiddles with the edge of her Spinneret mask. His wife has a few different nervous ticks for when she’s worrying about their daughter. Mask-fiddling is one of the more subtle ones.

Peter squeezes her shoulder to remind her that Spiderling is the one with the _safe_ mission. Mom and Dad are the ones standing around in a multiversal nexus awaiting deployment to fight spider-eating vampires. Annie is in their New York, doing her homework. Granted, her homework is studying mystical scrolls with their new dimension-hopping allies, but homework is still homework. 

But wow, no matter the type, recruitment drives never warn you about all the waiting one actually has to do while gathering to do some daring battle. One gets bored. One gets really tired of trying not to stare.

Okay, so the Iron Man isn’t technically the weirdest person in the room. There are about six dozen Spider-Men—half of which are probably wearing a face far too similar to Peter’s—and some of them have extra limbs, deplorable fashion sense, or both. 

There’s a bombastically diverse array of other spider-beings. Some masked, some not. Some total strangers, some hazily familiar, some hostile in his own reality, and some loved ones both alive and dead. 

But they are all _spiders._ Even the guy with the Downton Abbey accent dressed head-to-toe in Captain Britain emblems is hanging from the ceiling. But the Iron Man is definitely Tony Stark. 

He might be shorter and less pseudo-genetically botoxed than the one Peter used to know, but he’s definitely a Tony, and he appears to be hovering over an even shorter Spider-Man in an Iron Spider suit.

The first thing Peter feels at the realization is annoyance. Peter has never needed the oversight of some Avenger.

He shouldn't eavesdrop. Not his world, not his business, but... enhanced hearing. Boredom. Those two things have a certain chemistry together. So Peter figures he can't be blamed.

Yeah, the one in the fancy nanotech spider-suit is definitely a fellow Peter. And from the way his voice cracks? Teenager. Definitely. 

There's no shortage of weird variables to all this dimensional travel, but the fact that there are directly parallel dimensions essentially operating within the same time-continuum while having misaligned ages between the same people, and even mismatched eras... yeah. That will always blow his mind, probably.

Iron Man has his helmet retracted so he can whisper, but god knows why the man thinks whispering in _this_ place would be effective. 

"Okay, slugger. For the record, I don't think you should be getting involved in this, but since you're gonna do it anyway, for the love of May and my twice post-op heart, _please_ keep your damn earpiece, in alright? And no hacking my AI. She's there to protect you."

Peter feels his hands instantly clench into fists. For a moment, he can almost hear his own world's Tony Stark steamrolling into a room, telling Peter what to do and how to do it and it makes Peter want to punch something. Spider-Man isn’t an Avenger anymore. 

He survived Venom's attack on his family without their help. He survived the Regent tyranny that came after without their help. No team or elder superhero has the right to dictate to Spider-Man--even a younger Spider-Man--how to do this job...

But some gesture Peter can't even see retracts the Iron Spider mask. And okay, yeah, Peter was young when he started the superhero gig. But... it's been a while since he's thought about that. And he hasn't dusted off a photo album in some time. The face underneath the mask is a Peter. But wow. He's young. He's... he's Annie-young. Maybe even exactly. 

Peter's suddenly glad he kept his mouth shut. The hypocrisy would just be too much. Peter got to leave his own fifteen year old at home. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, telling somebody else how to be appropriately overprotective. But damn, it still... rankles. 

Except his teenage self doesn’t seem bothered one bit. He’s even smirking. “Technically, Ned was the one who hacked Karen. And I like to think she and I protect each other.”

Tony snaps his fingers, “Aha! I have found the loophole in your lemming-grade self-preservation protocols. Yes, you should absolutely make sure Karen gets home safe. You should make sure her casing doesn’t even get a scratch on it.”

The boy’s eyes narrow, “My entire suit is her casing.”

“Exactly.” The billionaire grins.

“Eehhh,” The teen taps his chin as if in thought, “I think she can stand a few scratches. Maybe a scorch or two, even. Could lend some personality.”

Stark’s glare is decidedly unamused. “No. She’s a delicate lady. Were you not lecturing me five hours ago on taking care of nice things? And how responsible people took care of them so they lasted?”

Several feet away, Peter snorts, but makes sure to look in another direction, so as not to give away that he’s listening. He gave Annie a similar lecture himself a couple days ago, but it’s cool to know that in some worlds, he started the lecturing young, giving it to superhero adults and not just goons he was trying to distract on the street.

His teenage alt-self, meanwhile, has crossed his arms, and is splaying the fingers of one hand, counting off points in a new lecture of his own. “One, my uncle Ben’s camera is not comparable to battle armor in this scenario. Two, delicate or not, Karen has just informed me that she would gladly die for me, a la the crunchy deconstruction of an impact-absorbing car frame.”

“Stop reprogramming my AI with your goddamn geeky gallows humor.”

“She’s just extrapolating on the sass she learned from you, Mister Stark.”

“No crunchy deconstructions,” something in Stark’s voice shifts, moving from playful to serious, “Got it?”

The kid tracks the change, following with a more solemn nod. “Got it.” He shifts in place a little, drawing even closer to the man, though artfully stopping just short of the clank of metal against metal. “Thanks for coming with me.”

Iron Man, conversely, shows no hesitation in making a little noise as he slaps a hand onto the boy’s shoulder. “Nowhere I’d rather be, Pete.” 

The man’s words come purposefully, with eye contact and everything, though they are followed by the long-suffering sigh of a superhero who is quite done with being emotionally vulnerable for the day. 

“Besides, what is it they say? If you can’t beat it into their heads that they should stay home and run through decathlon flashcards, join ‘em instead?” 

“Yeah, I don’t think they say that.

“Well they should.”

They fall into a companionable silence, and Peter’s attention is drawn to how tightly Mary Jane is squeezing his hand. Her mouth is in a thin line, and for a moment he wonders if she was listening in right along with him.

Instead, he follows her gaze to yet another kid-version of himself, and he feels his stomach drop, because that one can’t be more than _twelve_. He’s with some version of Uncle Ben in a half-mask, and they are both clearly in over their heads, hanging on to each other as they glance around. Peter remembers his own Uncle Ben dying, and he’s still never seen the man look so afraid. 

There are many possible reasons why they came together, none of them good. Perhaps the Inheritors already hit their world. Maybe even made a wreck of it. Sometimes people choose to fight simply because there is no safe place to go. 

Peter loosens his grip as MJ darts away, heading toward his tiniest self. He doesn’t really register what she says, only that her tone is soft and slow. Much like the one she uses to ease Annie out of a nightmare.

He lets out a giant sigh of relief as the self-appointed leading Spider-Man calls for silence. 

He’s not even going to overthink why there’s an Otto Octavius in a Peter Parker body trying to order people around.

Peter just wants this to be over.

* * *

It’s over. Thank God, it’s over.

Peter hugs Annie tightly. She squirms a little in his arms, and Peter mentally curses the teenage demands of independence, even though his daughter is definitely due for a round of it. 

But thankfully, she just settles a little more comfortably into the hug, and lets him lean his masked face against her tussled red curls that smell faintly of smoke and magical residue.

He can feel Mary Jane's hand on his shoulder as her other hand lands around Annie in a half-hug. They went on the more dangerous mission, but Peter knows MJ was as worried as he was. 

All Spider-Man and Spinneret were called to do was fight. They could fight. Fighting was what they did.

But Annie has been dragged into the magical side of things, and despite reassurances that she would go nowhere near the battle, there’s a limit to how much that can actually reassure Peter. Magic is something he’s never been able to grasp fully. He's had up-close experiences with it, sure, but it remains far from his realm of expertise.

So, they worried. He worried. What if the psycho-vamps thought Annie's role was so important, that they should go for her first? Before all the other Spiders? What if her seer powers somehow made her easier to track than other Spiders? There was no basis for the idea, but oh, wouldn't that just be Parker luck? What if--

"She's safe and sound, Da--er. As promised. Not even a little traumatized." a steely yet stressed feminine voice interupts.

He looks up.

When Annie was born, several wounds inside of Peter finally sealed into a scar. As much as the landscape of NYC has transformed over time, people still don’t like to mess with graveyards. 

His first baby’s little headstone is still well kept, re-dressed in flowers every year. Things happen. He doesn’t always manage to lay them out on the exact day, but since Regent fell, since he began to let go of the fear of stepping outside, he’s visited that grave just a little more. 

He’s told his little Mayday what her sister is like. He’s described Mary Jane’s fashion boutique and how it’s been doing. He’s regaled her with tales of their family exploits. He’s whinged about the X-men and their exhausting recruitment drives. (Peter will take fifty pitches from door-to-door salespeople over one visit from those guys, he swears.) He’s complained about how hot dogs are getting more expensive every year. 

He’s whispered his little wonderings out loud: would she agree with him? Would she follow in their footsteps, fighting crime, unable to look away? What would May sound like? What would she look like?

It’s the most bizarre thing to know the wondering isn’t needed anymore. She looks like him.

Where Annie looks spectacularly like Mary Jane, but with his nose and the crooked left tilt of his smile, Mayday is practically the inversion of her. The soft turn of her dimples throws a few details of resemblance to MJ into relief. But her eyes, her cheekbones, the furrow of her brow and the simplest ratios of her face are all things Peter knows well from his own bathroom mirror. 

And the gravity of responsibility that weighs down her shoulders is perhaps the most familiar thing of all.

“You did great,” he tells her. “You did amazing.” It’s not enough.

He’s no stranger to awkward moments, but there’s just something extra awful about this one. 

What to do? To hug? To not hug? To say more? To shut up? To get mercifully struck by lightning right where he stands? 

Thank God for Mary Jane.

She steps up to Mayday and places a gentle hand on her arm. The girl—young woman, sorry—lets her shoulders relax and summons a small smile. 

Peter looks down and realizes that Annie is finally relaxing and smiling herself, observing her mom would-be sister from the corner of her eye. She doesn’t whisper, because she’s a member of his family and she comprehends that whispering gets overheard, but Peter sees her lips moving, as she tries to meet his eyes through her white lenses.

“Daddy, I wish we could keep her—”

“Annie—”

“But I know we can’t.”

Peter hates how often he has to tell his daughter no. He knows Annie sometimes resents how often she’s told to hide her powers. She never really begrudged the toys they couldn’t afford, the bedtimes they insisted on, or the chores they assigned. 

But she's enough like him that something throughout her whole posture begins to burn whenever she's told to look the other way. When she's told she can’t help. He knows exactly what that's like, but because he's her father, he pretends not to.

This, Annie knowing what is--or isn't--possible, spares him that momentary pain. Or it should. He still wishes he could tell her she's wrong.

But Mayday's shoulders are already straightening. She holds herself well. Tough. Kinda jock-like, even. Peter's now wondering about that too.

Anya Corazon interrupts his interal question-hold-the-answers session when she sidles up to the lot of them. "Okay, guys. So we are done fighting. Buuuutt..."

Mayday lifts a brow. "But? I'm not in the mood for buts. Spit it out."

Anya shrugs, "I just talked to Madame Webb. Or, _a_ Madame Webb anyway. One of the nice ones. She says that we should re-gather the scrolls for safe-keeping before we return home."

Annie breaks out of the hug. "What? But... we used up the scrolls. They turned into portals. We jumped through those portals. They're gone."

Anya sighs, "I'm just the messenger, amiga. Apparently, they re-formed into scrolls behind us, but didn't come with us. They will return to scroll form on the way back. So... you're gonna need to quickly retrace a few steps and then go home. Sorry. I can come with you though?"

Annie shakes her head. "No. That's my job. It's not even a big deal. I just need to stop at Loomworld and Mayday's dimension before returning home, right? Easy peasy."

" _We_ will stop at Loomworld and Mayday's dimension before returning home." Mary Jane interjects.

"Right." Peter chimes in.

If it's such an easy-peasy job, no reason the family can't tag along together. And it's on their way home, anyway, right? 

He can feel Annie May rolling her eyes behind her mask. "Yeah, guys. Whatever."

It's decided then. All well and thought-out.

* * *

Peter might not have thought this out. At least not well.

They stopped at Loomworld first. When Annie had started searching around the carnage there, Peter hadn’t overthought it. The place was so alien, and such a mess, that he and MJ had been content to curl up on a rock and “be vaguely gross in public” as Annie called it, while the girls looked around and under debris. 

He didn’t worry about the length of the search, because it was just so _nice_ to relax and not feel his spider-sense blaring for half an hour. Annie told them to take a break while she worked, and it had all seemed fine.

Apparently, when Annie was fulfilling her magical scroll mission, she made her dimensional stops without fully paying attention to her launch point.

That is, Annie and May had stopped at Mayday's house to pick up extra web fluid and check on May’s baby brother, but now neither of them recall which room they were in when they jumped to their next point. It’s also possible that the scroll just reappears in a radius of where they left, instead of in the exact spot. 

Because now they are standing in a dead man's house--a dead Peter's house--and Annie can't find her scroll. 

His daughter has many wonderful, brilliant skill sets. But remembering where she misplaced something? Isn't one of them. He has not forgotten the Missing Barbie Barrette Incident from first grade. He can't, because history has repeated itself too many times since.

He can tell that Mayday wants to help. It only makes sense for her to help. For one, it's her house. But somehow, even though the girls have known each other for a whopping twenty hours, its been enough time for Mayday to recognize one of Annie's "gotta do it myself" snits. 

Peter had failed to see how territorial Annie was getting over this whole “pattern-maker” responsibility, and now that impulse is in full-swing right when it’s most inconvenient. 

_On second thought,_ Peter observes, _This isn’t a dead man’s house. If anything, it’s what you get… after._

There is something off about the place. Bare. There's the kind of bare that belongs to all the New Yorkers Peter has ever known. It's the bare of somebody moving into a new apartment, yet again, and managing to still suffer a lack space despite the meagerness of all their possessions.

Then there's the kind of bare than Peter knows. A kind more unique to his family and their closest friends. It's the bare spaces left by possessions that are gone. Destroyed. Wether they were burnt in fire or soaked in blood, some items are too personal to replace after they are gone. 

Messes still happen, sure. Laundry never makes it to the basket. Soda pop cans congregate. The recycle pile overflows a bit. Pizza boxes stack and topple. But the shelves have little spaces where family photo albums should be. 

The clothes in the closet may not be new, but some still have the thrift store tags on them. There's a couch, but not many chairs. Not because guests are unwelcome, but because furniture is expensive, and super-villains have a way of trashing a home in a way that's just never fully repairable. 

There are a several photos on the walls, but here are no signs of age in the prints, because they're new. Recently-reprinted digital copies from hard-drives and clouds, because when do the original photos ever survive? They don't. Peter sees his own face there. Then everywhere. In over half the photos loveling spaced around.

Except, of course, it's not really his face. Peter has suspected for a while now that his healing factor has a certain... survival mode to it. Because there have been a few times in his life where things were... were going okay. And then he'd get a paper cut. He'd stare at it, waiting for the slice to visibly heal in real-time and then... it didn't. He’s taken black-and-blue tissue damage in stride—healed from it overnight—but that paper cut lingered.

It can't be as simple as "a watched pot never boils" Instead, Peter's been toying with a different theory: that his healing factor slows when he experiences an extended period of safety. Like it's prepared to wander off if he stops needing it for the daily fights and bloody nights. 

He felt something like that paper cut feeling when Annie was born. When he toyed with the idea of settling down. But when he finally did, it was forced.

Regent's slaughter of over half the heroes of his world caused Peter to _hunker_ down more than _settle_ down. Fight or flight isn't just a set of verbs. It's an instinct. 

And oh, it blares and screams and hates being hidden. But sometimes hiding is necessary. Peter hid for ten years. And though it's good to be out in the sun as his spidery self again, he's never stopped fighting. His healing factor has never slowed because he's never gone a day unaware that he might need it.

The Peter Parker in the pictures in front of him, though? He's a different story. His temples are gray. He's got lines in his face, all kinds of lines. Stress, laughter, exhaustion... life. He's smiling up at the camera, trying to fully display the goofy light that belongs on a father's face when he's showing off the dinosaur puns on his baby boy's t-shirt. 

The photo next to it is zoomed out. His arm is around a tweenage Mayday on a basketball court--definitely a jock, Peter called it--while she pulls on her outfit to better display her jersey number. 

Her father leans on her shoulders, cane raised up in victory. A cane that isn't for show, because his very dad-like cargo shorts give away the fact that one leg is prosthetic. And not a perks-of-knowing-superheroes top-of-the-line prosthetic, either. Rather, something normal. Understated. Human.

This man gave his family something Peter never could: a normal life. Basketball games and ice cream at the park. School and friends and summer camp and Mary Jane... God. 

Mary Jane looks happy in those photos. She looks so happy. At once, he realizes that this world's Mary Jane could be in this house right now, and how horrible would that be? To watch her walk around the corner and see her face fall, because she has to look at her dead husband's mug--

"Stop wallowing. Mom's not here." Mayday saves him from his own brain.

"Sorry." Peter clears his throat, "Nothing not-weird about seeing your life in another dimension, you know?"

"So they tell me. There's not too many of me that I've seen. Lots of you's but..."

"I lost you." The words are out of Peter's mouth, as if out of his control, "You were... um. You were almost born, but..."

She nods, "But I didn't make it. Yeah. Annie told me."

"She did?" Peter blurts. 

He's struck by a really odd swell of pride for his Spiderling. She's so much better at this whole emotion and communication thing than her folks. Peter and Mary Jane are both still learning every day, and here's Annie coming right out with the tough awkward stuff, full swing. Peter has a few different types of courage he keeps handy for the life he leads, but Annie's particular brand still manages to take him by surprise. 

He can tell May is trying to summon up some courage of her own as she confesses."It did make me feel better. To know... to know I was going to exist. It made me feel less... replaced? Okay, never mind, that sounds really bad..."

"Never." Peter assures.

Oh, good. He'd worried for a moment there that he had forgotten how to be the reassuring one when talking to a teenage angst-ball. Bullet dodged.

May takes a deep breath, not unlike the way Peter himself does when bracing for a long night. "Okay. So... I feel like we should get the hug out of the way? Because we were totally gonna do that, right? I'm, like, 78% sure."

Peter lets his jaw hang open to display his scandal. "Only seventy-eight? What? You doubt me a full twenty-two percent? I'm hurt. Demoralized, even. I'm--"

Her arms wrap around his torso like boa constrictor. Her grip is tight, and wow hugs from people strong enough to match one of Peter's own hugs are never going to stop being the coolest. 

She lets loose a derisive snort, even as her nose buries into the spider emblem on his chest. 

And ooh... how cute. She does that little back-pat while hugging thing that Peter remembers the basketball bozos from his own high school days performing on each other. Adorable. 

"Also," Peter sighs, "I'm gonna correct you here and remind you that hugs are not a thing to be 'gotten out of the way'. We savor and appreciate hugs under my roof, young lady."

"It's my roof." her muffled voice croaks from behind her shoulder.

"Potato, tomato." he shrugs.

"That's not how the saying goes." May's admonishment falls apart by ending in a chuckle. 

"In your dimension, maybe."

Her eyes narrow, as she makes a more casual attempt at peering into his soul. "No. You're messing with me."

"Am I?"

She pulls back, and he realizes that she's turned to look at the photo of her dad with her baby brother in that dino shirt. She gazes at it, and back at him again, and Peter lets himself believe that she's letting the sweet overpower the bitter.

There is so much normalcy in the few photos they have. They span in scattered snapshots across May's childhood. Tooth-fairy visits, report cards, sports trophies, and parties. And through it all, Peter can see that his other self and his own Mary Jane let themselves get old together. This was everything he's wanted for his own family, for Annie.

But... he's here. Peter is still alive. And the man with life-lines and salt-pepper temples is not. Peter doesn't doubt for a second that when the inheritors came for the Parkers, this world's Peter Parker fought with everything he had.

But what he had was a slowed healing factor, an out-of-practice right hook, and nothing but himself. He sent his daughter away and he fought alone. So naturally--Peter winces to think it--he died. And now all the people he left behind are more than a little broken for it.

"It's not your fault." he whispers in May's ear. "It isn't. Don't think it. Not for a second."

He meant to give her strength, but it seems to be the thing that finally lets her cry instead. The same power that let him feel the strength of her hug is shuddering through her shoulders now, in jolts and sobs. 

That's okay. 

Peter might not be the best and telling _himself_ that when he's the one holding tight to the weight of his guilt, but he wouldn't wish the pain on someone he loves--not even someone he loves by proxy. So despite how much he hates seeing family members cry, he firmly reminds himself that this is part of how that weight is released, and so... it's okay.

"I just st--stood there." May sniffs, "I grabbed Benjy, and I--"

"You did exactly what you needed to. Your brother is safe. Your dad would not have been able to bear it if something happened to either of you. I know it. Your brother is alive because of you. The inheritors are defeated because of you. Everyone else here is safe now because of you. Remember that. Okay, May? You _need_ to remember that."

She meets his eyes then, and, oh, if he hasn't faced that look in the mirror a thousand times...

"I--I will if you will." she challenges.

Peter swallows. 

This world's Peter Parker gave his family a lot of good things. But this world's Peter Parker had good choices.

Peter got to choose between seeing his teammates slain or his family slaughtered. He got to choose between going down fighting and leaving his family vulnerable or living with them each day, with one eye cast over his shoulder. 

And the moment he thought he finally had a choice between being simply Peter Parker or being Spider-Man again, he saw MJ in Regent-salvaged tech and his Annie in her roller derby helmet as they staunchly informed him that the Pandora's box of a superhero life had been opened for all of them, and there was no going back. 

Peter would have loved to have the options that May's father did. But he won't ignore the facts anymore. He is alive. And Annie is okay. She really is. That isn't purely the product of luck.

Sometimes he can do something right. He's doing 'right' right now.

For once, Peter does something he never does: he lets some of the guilt go. He gives May a smile as real as anything in the photos she has nested around her, and he holds it until she can smile back.

A nod, another sniff, and her shoulders are straight once more. Hugs are definitely too short in this version of Peter's family. Instead of lamenting it, he's going to give himself a pat on the back for doing another right thing back home.

But while May is clearly feeling better, Peter's own benediction can't really be the same as words from her own father, but they are worlds better than nothing. They are more than she thought she'd have.

So when the silence is broken by the sound of a car parking outside and steps coming up to the door, May's eyes widen and she jerks her head up the stairs telling him to go.

"That would be Wes.... and mom. You're gonna wanna hurry." she whispers. Right. He might be able to help May, but this world's Mary Jane would be a different story. 

Peter rounds the corner to the stairs, only to find his own wife with a hand covering her mouth behind the stairwell. 

She struggles to talk about the baby they lost, but her quiet tears and firm nod speak to Peter in a way words wouldn't manage to. He takes her hand as they finish the climb to the attic. 

Annie sits cross-legged in a cleared-off section of the floor, scroll in hand.

"Okay, pumpkin," Peter sighs, "How long did it really take you to find your dang scroll?"

Annie shrugs, her face the very definition of sorry-not-sorry. "Thirty seconds? Give or take five?"

Mary Jane snorts.

The portal snaps open at his daughter's command, and Annie gives a little jostling of her shoulders, reserved for when she's showing off. Intense battle and fast-paced team-ups have a way of instilling new skills quickly.

Peter refuses to feel bad about that tonight. As if there is a danger that May will feel the vibes of his hypocrisy radiating all the way downstairs. 

That's when his wife finds her voice again, she's a little hoarse, but teasing, "And did we learn anything besides a portal-opening skill that is very dangerous that we will *not* use without supervision?"

"Yes," Annie says taking their hands. Ooooh... she's good. Emotional intuition for the win. "I learned that I have a very cool dad."

"Excuse you? What was I before?" Peter interjects.

His daughter shrugs. "Just a good one."

_Just a good one._ It’s a jab that unfurls into a blessing, the highest praise. Peter grins as he steps with his family into the pool of light. There is a tiny thrill of the unknown, but no prodding from his spider-sense. Spiderling navigates their path home, steady and sure.

Did she even need to stop at as long as she did at Loomworld? Peter is suddenly uncertain. The sort of uncertain that comes with appreciating years of pranks reciprocated. 

Annie looks over her shoulder and scrunches up her nose at him. Winking through a mask is one of those things she’s never quite figured out to do correctly, along with snapping her fingers and whistling in-tune. So, she nose-scrunches instead.

Peter scrunches back. There are some secrets that she will never tell him. Not because trauma or other mistakes made, but because sometimes secrets can be fun. He knows exactly where she learned that. 

He smells the price-jacked hot dogs before he sees the familiar New York skyline. 

They swing to their apartment in an unspoken race, falling over each other as they scramble through the window. There’s yet another competition for the bathroom shower, one that Annie is _allowed_ to win, thank you very much. 

His family clean and collapsed together on the couch…

Peter Parker sleeps the sleep of the _just._


End file.
